LIZ JONES: FASHION THERAPY

Got a hot Valentine's date? Don't dress up if you want him to undress you later...

The other day, I learned a valuable lesson. I was in a business meeting with a man in the lobby of a trendy London hotel.

He was, to my intense surprise, almost crumpet, and so I broke the habit of a lifetime and decided I would flirt with him.

I took off my jacket and draped it over the chair, revealing the tight, black, sleeveless Katharine Hamnett T-shirt I was wearing beneath (this garment is still as black and as skin-hugging as the day I bought it in 1989, proving designer clothes can sometimes be money well spent).

Bad date? Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie Bradshaw

The jacket slid to the floor, and the man rather gallantly picked it up. As he did so, he glanced at the label, Yves Saint Laurent. He rolled his eyes. 'No, come on,' I said. 'What is wrong with a bit of YSL?'

'Do you really want to know?' he said.

'Yes, of course I do.'

'It's French, it's designer, it's expensive and it means you're probably going to be a complete pain in the arse.'

'OK,' I said. 'What else is wrong?'

'Your shoes are too high and clumpy, your bag too big and heavy - I just know that I will be asked to carry it at some stage; either that or it will bash me in the leg - and none of what you have on says "carefree" to me.

'You are wearing far too much make-up: no man likes to be smudged with brown foundation.' He pointed out that my bag - a navy Michael Kors tote - had even been given its own seat, as I never put my handbag on the floor. Oh dear.

I went on a date with a man in New York not long ago and we somehow got on to the subject of Sex And The City.

'Which of the four women did you most fancy?' I asked him, quite pleased with my own resemblance to Carrie (always broke, always tapping out a column on a laptop, extreme fondness for Manolo Blahnik).

'Definitely not Carrie - what a dog. I would say Samantha in the bedroom, Charlotte out of it.'

'I am not gay,' is all he would say. 'Carrie should spend less money on shoes, much more on plastic surgery.' Ouch.

Ah well, let's just say both men failed to make a note of my mobile phone number, but this most recent encounter set me thinking. Why do men find fashion such a turn-off, and have we, in our mania for the new, lost the ability to dress simply and sexily?

Do men hate us spending money on ourselves, or does an addiction to fashion indicate we are not good girlfriend material?

I think the truth is that men are intimidated by women who dress fashionably. When I found out my husband was having an affair, I spent ages studying a photo he had taken of the woman he was involved with.

She was wearing a white broderie anglaise maxi skirt and horrible cheap sandals. 'Doesn't she realise the boho look was over two years ago?' I asked him bitchily. 'At least she didn't make me feel I should burn my trainers,' was his reply.

As we parted, I asked the YSL-phobic man why he objected so strongly to the fact my bag had its own seat and had almost been given its own menu.

'I was just about to sit next to you,' he said. 'The vibe it gave off was: "Keep away! Never take me camping! I am never, ever going to get down and dirty with you!"'

I told him that, well, given he was wearing loafers without socks in some kind of throwback to Miami Vice, had blond highlights in his hair and was about a foot shorter than me, I would never have gone out with him anyway.